Zaca, the Hebrews were a majority in what is now Israel before the romans dispersed them. So why are we drawing the line pre-official-Israel? As for the three words, they're more or less the same nowadays, just like Jewish and Israeli are also interchangeable when referring to Israel.And there was nothing racist about my post. Most Iranians are Caucasian. It doesn't mean I can't stand Ahmadinejad, either. Contemptuous? Absolutely. What's the reason *not* to hold in contempt those who sympathize with suicide bombers?Anyone who sympathizes with suicide bombers and sees them as "freedom fighters" should be killed just as quickly.

It is common knowledge that Hebrews were a minority within Palestine, and that Hebrews and Arabs had historically coexisted in peace within the same territory before WWII.

It is also common knowledge that the words Islam, Arabs, and Palestinians do not have the same meaning. Actually, the oldest Christian communities were in Bethlehem, and its members happen to be Christian Arabs.

It is also common knowledge that it is different to claim for a land than to illegally occupy a territory.

BTW, your comment about providing secular education to Palestinians and about “this poet” seems to be a little racist and contemptuous.

It is common knowledge that Hebrews were a minority within Palestine, and that Hebrews and Arabs had historically coexisted in peace within the same territory before WWII.

It is also common knowledge that the words Islam, Arabs, and Palestinians do not have the same meaning. Actually, the oldest Christian communities were in Bethlehem, and its members happen to be Christian Arabs.

It is also common knowledge that it is different to claim for a land than to illegally occupy a territory.

BTW, your comment about providing secular education to Palestinians and about “this poet” seems to be a little racist and contemptuous.

Actually, if you pay close attention (contrasted with what appears to be the 'scant' attention you visited upon it), he's quite bitterly reflecting on the status of Israel at the time he wrote it.

In doing so, he used an analogy. Poets are well within their rights to do this and any number of other literary devices. And the fatalism displayed by both the Palestinian protagonist and the Israeli character (whom I suppose you could call the antagonist) hints more at the fact that the callous brutality of both the Israeli government and the Palestinian factions (I won't use emotionally charged terms like "terrorist" or "freedom fighter", as they trivialise the Israeli/Palestinian situation) has killed the spirit of the land.

Personally I think it's one of the best summations of the conflict I have ever seen.

To suggest, however, the heavy handed - often, ham fisted - tactics of the Israeli government could be called "reclamaition" is rich, however. It would be like calling the violence of Hezbollah and HAMAS as "civil disobedience". When I think of land reclaimation, I think of the slightly absurd, i.e. Hong Kong.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have an equal, unmitigated claim to the land. No one side is more nor less legitimate than the other.

Zaca, you realise using "Zionist" not only places your credibility in the shredder, it's pretty close to erroneous given the Zionist movement was characterised not by the cuddly right wing position of your average Israeli expansionist but by it's radical leftist politics.

Arabs, by definition, descend from the arab tribes and share a common culture and language. Palestine is a name that has widely been used since Roman times and refers to the territory that is between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In consequence, people that live in Palestine are Palestinians, who happens to speak Arabic and descend from the Canaanites, Philistines, and Semites among other tribes, and used to live for centuries in their land. The majority of Palestinians, as far as I know never pretended not to be Arabs, but used to live in their country which used to be Palestine (Just as Lebanese people are Arabs and live in Lebanon).
It is false though saying that Palestinian people do not exist, or saying that the word Palestinian is an ethimologic mistake, or just a concept that was artificially built using propaganda techniques.
The massive blitz of propaganda come from wealthy Zionist organizations that are trying to get the world confused with false ideas, and in the long term trying to twist history on their behalf, trying to hide the atrocities that the Zionist ideals have done to the Palestinian people.
However, I am not arguing that Israel has not the right to exist ( which I believe should exist beside a Palestinian state), but trying to unmask how reality has been consistently manipulated by Zionist organizations and individuals.

Mahmoud Darwish, the voice of Palestine, died on August 9th.Last year, in summer 2007, Andre Chouraqui died.The Israelo-Palestinian world, lost two respected voices.Two voices still with us, by the magic of their words, their writings.Could we not since we are all children of Abraham, have a truce here, and salute both of these men?Could join Mahmoud Darwish, and Andre Chouraqui, in little steps toward an elusive, but possible peace?.I know little about Mahmoud Darwish, but if do, please let us know, by posting here, possibly with a link to a web site reflecting his poetry, and his values?Ideally in the original language, and possibly in the langa franca of today: english.After all the jewish doctor Maimonides, wrote in Arabic... a long time ago.Andre Chouraqui former mayor of Jerusalem was a peace maker.In Algeria, saddened by the difficulty of his christians, muslim, and jewish friends to understand each other, Andre Chouraqui, endavored to translate the Torah, the New testament, the Coran, in a very beautiful, and vigorous french.His comments before every book of the bible, and every sourat of the Coran, are in my view, instructional, and obviously aim at mutual understanding.Andre Chouraqui was a "renaissance man", an erudite: he mastered arabic, hebrew, grec, as well a a beautiful french, and possibly (not sure) arameic.You can buy in a bookstore a copy of the Chouraqui Bible, and also a copy of the Coran he translated.But both have been available for free "on line" on the internet:Did Mahmoud Darwish and Andre Chouraqui know each other?I do not know, but you may! Then please post here too.Salem Aleykum, Shalom Aleichem: Almost the same language! Certainly the same meaning.Written on: Tuesday 15 Av 7668, Tues Aug 26, 2008, year 1386 of the Hegeria.

Although Mr Bernier may have based his statements in a blog written by a "political and religious fanatic" (which is a biased opinion of an individual by itself), he does speak the truth. Until 1948, Israel was referred to as Palestine and all things related in the same fashion. The words Palestine and Palestinian took on their modern meaning as part of a massive blitz of Arab propaganda to make people think they are a separate people from the Arabs, which they are not. Arabia (and Northern Africa and the Horn of East Africa) for the Arabs, Palestine for the Palestinians, at least according to the original Balfour Declaration, I say.

Based on the principles of logics, a conclusion that is built over an argument that is believed to be true, but in reality is a biased opinion of an individual (or a collection of biased opinions of many individuals), will be flawed.
It is insulting for the intelligence of The Economist's readers how Mr. Bernier is repeatedly trying to manipulate, with cheap logic tricks, ideas such as that the Palestinian people does not exist. Mr. Bernier bases his statements in a blog written by a political and religious fanatic, taking pieces of arguments that are claimed to be a result of "objective scientific research"

Absurdity ad infinitum..inanity unlimited...idiocy unbridled and wishful thinking cum self inflicted blindness to claim that Palestinians, and a Palestinian people, does NOT, DID NOT, ever exist.
What would any sane person call the people who live in, say, Frusia and to whom Frusia belongs except Frusians??
If Frusia happened to be , geographically and culturally , part of Mrusia would being Mrusian nullify , efface, void its Frusian identity??
Does being, say, an American voids and nullifies his being a Texan or Virginian or Ohioan as well??
Conversely if one happens to be a Texan would that detract from, diminish or efface his American, cultural/nationalistic, identity.

The ploy, to legitimize Israel's colonialist demographic then military conquest of Palestine achieved through the British empowered mass emigration of Jews, against the express will of the majority of the Palestinian people, 80% Arab pre British mandate, by denying that Palestine was inhabited for some fourteen centuries by an Arab, cultural/nationalist, majority which calls itself Palestinian was tried before but failed miserably for being so much anti historical fact , anti contemporary reality and anti common sense .
That it should be reiterated here is nothing short of amazing ...except that it does confirm the old dictum that the worst type of inanity, and blindness, is the self inflicted type!

To be a Palestinian and a Poet is possibly second best to being a Palestinian and a freedom fighter...Mahmoud Darwish was both!
From his very early childhood he digested the true meaning of Israel as a nation/state that come into existence as a result of dislocating, dispossessing, disfranchising and subjugating HIS own people in their/his homeland then supplanting them with aliens screened and chosed according to a strict racist crierion: being Jewish.
Early on he came to realize that, in this world, it is NOT enough for you to be in the right and for your foe to be in the wrong for your cause to triumph...so at a relatively very early age he joined the then only non Zionist party in his homeland: the Communist Party in which he joined forces with non Zionist Jews.
To him, and from a very early age, the distinction between Jew and Zionist was paramount for the ultimate success of his cause.
I recall that once in an aside he said to others, what amounts to after the elapse of time, "some of our best friends will be Jewish realizing that it is doubly criminal for a victim to victimize innocents."
That much is implied in many of his poems that should be read in their original Arabic for the non said to be heard!
Palesine and the Palestinian people will give birh to more freedom fighter poets untill.....the nightmare is over.

Reading Darwish's poetry so often fills me with sadness for those closest to me who are Palestinian and who have been robbed of their homeland these 60 years. The world has lost not only a poet of great subtlety and depth, but also the conscience and voice of a people who are drowned out by the Zionist rallying cry. All my husband and his family want is to return to their ancestral home near the beaches of Jaffa, for our children to have a future of security and prosperity. Darwish's poetry aptly captures the grief and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees living a shadowy existence imprisoned by ID cards, checkpoints and the Apartheid wall; always yearning for the occupiers to relinquish their stranglehold and to let the Palestinians breathe freedom.

It is only fair that the Palestinian people have a national poet of their own. As is natural (though sad) in the circumstances, they will first hear what their common consciousness wants to hear - the pro-liberation and anti-Israeli verses, before delving onto the other, less political ones.It is for the politicians, and not poets, to be the politically correct.

Darwish was indeed a remarkable poet. But he was also an implacable foe of Israel. He ignored the fact that the Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN partition plan and started a war to prevent by force its implementation. They failed and brought nothing but disaster to their own people. Darwish ignored the long historical and emotional connection of the Jewish people to the land of their origin, which later became known as Palestine. Darwish supported the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people from Palestine, as he wrote in one of his well known poems:” "Take your dead with you and go back to the countries you came from. Go from here wherever you want to go. Take your passport. but not among us. It is time you go. You can die wherever you want but not among us." Yes he was a great poet and unfortunately also a racist.